Watercolor as metaphor of time

                         The watercolors as a material have such important function in the Art History as the Science History, especially the Natural Sciences, where’s the meticulous representation of anatomy and the most part of the species catalog of the XVI to XIX century were made with this ambiguous material: the complete control of pigment against the instability of water. The watercolor has a long list of unique qualities, naturally, as all the art materials was a result of infinities attempts to find stability, promotes the mixing possibility and especially the resistance to light: the chemic and the properties of natural pigments of the XV century follow the development of the industrial thought and later, developed artificial pigments that promote this dreamed quality of color and resistance of light. Philip Ball has an amazing book called ”Bright-Earth” where he explains in details of the interdisciplinary history of pigments, with an entire dedicated section to the blue-pigments history.

Moreover, as the most part of the human developments, searching for accurate tools to any kind of issue and field, as the telescope and lunettes to the astronomy and the high stable pigments in arts, the watercolor still has a unique mark of time: doesn’t matter which Brandt, remains the power of time; chemically talking this search for the eternity of the image using water can’t win the light impact in the paper; the yellowish of paper and the loss of pigment properties. Certainly, we have techniques to conserve better, as the glass plaques and ink holders, but as all in this world, the eternity is beyond of our control, the art of painting with watercolour has their limits, observable through exactly and ironically for our precious tools as artists: the light. Although the watercolour keeps being a single material to capture light effects even destroyed for the same principle, as the time.